Rear of the chassis shows the servo for rear
steering. Large rear motor unit is perched between the wheels.

Jim Resnick

Financially beleaguered and lacking two top
executives—who left just before the end of the year—Faraday Future
unveiled its first actual electric car at the 2017 Consumer Electronics
Show in Las Vegas on Tuesday night. Calling it "a new species" that
"reformats the future," the FF91 ("nine-one") has a name which will
confuse rather than clarify, but the critical numbers are impressive.

Faraday claims the FF91 will have bigness on
its side: the biggest electric drive system, at 130kW of energy (using
cells provided by LG Chem but packaged by Faraday); the greatest range,
at a minimum of 378 miles using the EPA's protocol (700km on the EU
cycle) before needing a charge; and a power output of 783kW (equivalent
to 1,050hp). Charging is important to Faraday, too, and an open charging
strategy across networks works at 1.5, 10, and 15kW power levels,
though the fastest DC charging will operate over 200kW.

"[We have] the greatest energy density,
the most compact and most potent system in the world," said Faraday's
propulsion engineering VP, Peter Savagian. "We have 20 percent more
battery, motor and more useful torque than anyone else." Clearly, all of
this puts the cart before the horse a bit, because the FF91 is not yet
on sale, is not yet in its final phase of R&D, and won't hit the
market until sometime in 2018 at the earliest.

Getting all that power to the ground requires a
bunch of traction, so the FF91 has optional all-wheel-drive through
multiple motors, yielding torque vectoring at the rear. There's also
rear-wheel steering. Savagian also told us the stability and traction
control operate at a far higher resolution than other systems, netting
much better cornering stability and acceleration at the limit of
traction, the latter ringing a supercar bell
with 0-60 mph reached in an official – even though it's not in
production yet – 2.44 seconds, with a best-ever test figure of 2.39
seconds. That is seriously quick and far quicker than anything in the
SUV class with which the FF91 will compete, even the Tesla Model X P100D.

"We will always challenge the limits of
performance," Savagian said. But is outright performance the tipping
point for people interested in a pure electric luxury SUV like the FF91?
Hasn't most of the research proven environmental, emissions, and fossil
fuel use proven to be the elephant in consumer's heads?

The FF91 platform will be a scalable chassis,
able to meet a variety of size and duty needs across segments, a claimed
innovation. Y'know, like the Volkswagen MQB platform which yields
everything from the Golf, Jetta, Tiguan, and the next-generation Passat to Audi's A1, A3, Q3, and TT.

"Form follows multi-function," stated Faraday's head of design,
Richard Kim. Some cars like the Toyota Prius Prime are slipperier in
drag, but one big goal was giving the maximum amount of space inside
(151 cubic feet/4,276L), blurring the line between mid- and full-size.
Yet, for all the book-rewriting Faraday claims for the FF91 design, it
cuts a figure scarily like a Jaguar F-Pace or the proper Saab SUV that
the company never lived long enough to build. And parking it within
inches of a wall on the passenger side at the reveal event leads one to
wonder what might be hiding there.

The FF91 also promises to be a top-tier
Internet of Things device. "The FF91 will provide full digital
integration, to the extent that you will never even have to think about
it," said R&D engineering VP, Nick Sampson.

"We won't innovate in 1-2 percent
increments," he added. "Plenty of other companies make those small
advances, but disruption is what the world needs. Faraday is not
predictable; we will create things that have yet to exist. We're going
to reformat the future. Air pollution, accidents and congestion will be
obsolete." Brave words from a company that hasn't built a single
commercial thing yet.

Autonomous driving is a large part of the
FF91's soup and it uses 30 sensors - including a retractable LiDAR
system - from around the car to enable a self-parking function where it
can hunt around a parking lot, not just take over after you've lined the
car up, as production Lexuses, Fords, and plenty of other brands have
been selling for years now. But this does raise a question: when did
parking become as stressful and impossible as three-layer chess? And
shouldn't anyone operating a car have the basic ability to park the
thing? When it came time to demo this feature, the car chose not to
cooperate, sitting motionless on stage, requiring troubleshooting.

The FF91 will also use an open ecosystem where
any app you have on your smartphone, such as one that provides video,
will integrate across platforms. Multiple modems and two Wi-Fi antennae
will make the FF91 the "most convenient hotspot on earth."

While the FF91 is due in 2018, for now, anyone
interested in the vehicle must register online with a $5,000 deposit to
secure a slot. But no actual price has been announced yet. There are
also no details about the interior.

Some of Faraday's innovations fail to meet a
basic smell test, though. Other cars can park themselves, even if they
cannot locate spaces. Other cars adjust temperatures automatically.
Other cars compensate for poor weather conditions. Other cars have
Wi-Fi. Other cars have torque vectoring that actively works to apportion
drive power most effectively to the wheels. And other companies have a
track record in the luxury sector.

As ever, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating. And the driving.